Sungard Signs up Poland's Alior Bank for WSE Connectivity

Biuro Maklerskie Alior Banku, the brokerage house of Polish Alior Bank, part of Italy’s Carlo Tassara Group, has selected SunGard’s Valdi trading solution for connectivity to the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Alior Bank’s traders will use Valdi’s trading tools for managing their WSE order flow, including Valdi Selector for Risk Management and Valdi Program Trader for basket trading and index arbitrage capabilities. Alior Bank will also connect its online retail Trading Platform to the Valdi order management solution for routing orders to the WSE.

The Polish Stock Index, WIG 20 is trading at 2,319.42.

Poland has a sophisticated capital markets structure, retail investors are the prominent players in its equity markets however with Poland's ability to weather the credit crunch it has been collecting most of the international FDI since the last 5 years. Poland joined the EU in 2004 however it still is loyal to its currency, the zloty is one of the leading emerging market currencies with average daily volume around $8 billion (BIS survey).

Krzysztof Polak, chief executive officer of Alior, said, “SunGard has expertise in the Polish capital markets and extensive project management skills. Valdi’s trading tools and integrated FIX order management features will facilitate our traders’ everyday work and help increase productivity.”

Philippe Carré, global head of connectivity for SunGard’s capital markets business, said, “SunGard can help fast growing firms like Alior Bank leverage the latest technology to trade on their local exchanges while also helping them to connect quickly and easily to global markets.”

Poland is fast developing itself as a leading hub for Eastern Europe, conveniently located between the developing eastern bloc and western europe it is home to one of the most liquid and thriving stock markets. It is the 6th largest economy in Europe and has a consistent growth rate above the eurozone average. In 2011 its economy grew 3%.

Forex is a preferred investment product for retail investors as domestic brokers like TMS and XTB have been driving interest through strong educational programs.

With a high literacy rate and high level internet usage Poland is home to a large number of FX traders. Recently a leading bank signed up with Metaquotes and Saxobank set up a physical presence in the most populous Eastern European nation.

UK based spread betting firm City Index set up its Polish office in November 2008 however it has not had success in wooing investors.

The Polish Zloty is currently trading at 3.31 against the greenback.

Forex Magnates research division is preparing a detailed analysis of Forex in Eastern Europe, launch date is to be confirmed shortly.